Through all ages men have tried to approach God by prayer. But to those with a ritualistic concept of worship and a vicarious approach, God has been shrouded in mystery; He has been inexplicable and afar off. Prayer has often appeared to fail. God on the whole has been thought to be beneficent, but still a God who permitted evil to have power over His creation. Yet all the time the pages of the Scriptures have pointed clearly to God as omnipotent good, Life, Truth, and Love. As such, He is to be discovered only through the prayer of understanding and not of fear. Christian Science emphasizes the paramount importance of such prayer. It exactly defines its nature, purpose, and power.
There have been seers and prophets, psalmists and teachers, to whom glimpses of God's omnipotence have come. They have seen in some measure that good is the real and that evil is the unreal. But so obscure has this fact seemed to mankind in general that these men and women have been often unheeded in their prophecies, their singing, and their teaching.
Then came the greatest Exemplar of all, Christ Jesus, to show and to prove by his words and works that God is indeed Love; that the understanding of Love is not the closed preserve of a selected few, but is the undisputed birthright of all. Jesus realized, though, that the thought of his time, while in some small way able to comprehend his teaching, was not sufficiently spiritually advanced for the full impact and import of that teaching to be understood and applied. So sure was he, however, of the continuity of God's law that he promised that a Comforter would again be available, and this promise was fulfilled when a revelator sufficiently consecrated and pure enough to receive it appeared. This revelator is Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.
